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Speaker 1: The stock is about a killing and about a really

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Speaker 1: terrible policy that causes great harm to people of color.

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Speaker 2: There Are No Girls on the Internet.

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Speaker 3: As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridge

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Speaker 3: Todd and this is there are No Girls on the Internet.

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Speaker 3: Do we want a world where a killer can walk free?

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Speaker 3: The Perfect Neighbor, now on Netflix, forces us to face

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Speaker 3: that question. The documentary tells the tragic story of a

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Speaker 3: j Owens and examines the legal and systemic failures that

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Speaker 3: almost allowed for her death to go unpunished. Journalists sold

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Speaker 3: At O'Brien has built her career on stories like this one,

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Speaker 3: stories that hit hard and stick with you, and this

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Speaker 3: project is exactly that. Executive produced by O'Brien with director

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Speaker 3: Gita Gondebier, The Perfect Neighbor dives into aj Owen's shocking

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Speaker 3: death and the systems that failed her. I am so

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Speaker 3: honored that you're here today, sold Ed. I'm such a

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Speaker 3: huge fan. If my parents were alive to see me

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Speaker 3: talking to you, and they would be so excited.

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Speaker 2: You have no idea. Thank you, Thank you. That's so sweet.

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Speaker 4: I appreciate that.

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Speaker 3: Now you may know Solodad O'Brien as an iconic journalist

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Speaker 3: who has earned multiple Emmys and Peabody Awards for her

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Speaker 3: coverage ranging from hur King Katrina to the BP oil spill.

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Speaker 3: But my earliest memory of her goes back even further

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Speaker 3: to a short lived, but way ahead of its time

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Speaker 3: tech news show about the emerging Internet revolution. It was

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Speaker 3: called The Site, and it aired on the early days

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Speaker 3: of MSNBC, a network I would later go on to

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Speaker 3: work for myself, in no small part inspired by Soldad O'Brien. Now,

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Speaker 3: if you didn't catch the show, it was truly something.

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Speaker 3: Soldad's co host was a virtual reality character named dev Nall,

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Speaker 3: voiced by real life tech journalist Leo Laporte, and they

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Speaker 3: would sit around in an animated espresso bar talking about

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Speaker 3: the Internet. Now, in case you can't tell, this was

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Speaker 3: the nineties, nineteen ninety six to the exact, long before

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Speaker 3: newsrooms were covering the Internet the way they do now.

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Speaker 3: Solodad became one of the earliest mainstream voices explaining this

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Speaker 3: new digital world just as it was also taking shape,

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Speaker 3: and for twelve year old Bridget just beginning to explore

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Speaker 3: the Internet, it was a very big deal. I was

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Speaker 3: talking to my producer as I was prepping for this,

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Speaker 3: and he was like, I don't know that I've ever

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Speaker 3: seen you nervous to speak to anybody before.

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Speaker 2: What's going on?

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Speaker 3: And I thought back, and I realized I had a

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Speaker 3: memory of watching one of your early shows with my parents,

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Speaker 3: who were big news junkies. Do you remember the show

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Speaker 3: that you did the site on ms and.

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Speaker 4: Yes, were you one of the six people who watched

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Speaker 4: that show?

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Speaker 2: Thank you?

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Speaker 4: I'm going to send you a fruit basket. Yeah, thank you.

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Speaker 3: My parents were the kind of people who always had

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Speaker 3: MSNBC on in the background, so and I loved that

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Speaker 3: you had like a you know, I was young when

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Speaker 3: it was on, but I loved that there was like

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Speaker 3: a virtual host. And so that was a show that

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Speaker 3: I remember very clearly watching and part of me wonders

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Speaker 3: if I'd even be doing tech media tech journalism today

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Speaker 3: if not for these memories of watching that show when I.

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Speaker 4: Was so crazy when we did that.

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Speaker 1: That was Leo Laporte, who was basically in a I

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Speaker 1: don't even know what you would call it, a suit

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Speaker 1: that you basically had stickers right, you would capture a

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Speaker 1: motion capture suit. And then part of the show of

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Speaker 1: the six people who watched it would know that we

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Speaker 1: would do a Q and A and then we always

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Speaker 1: had to do retraction Monday because he'd get stuff so wrong.

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Speaker 1: We'd be like, and it's retraction Monday, where we have

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Speaker 1: to take back some of the stuff. Deb Noll was

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Speaker 1: the name of the character, got wrong, and then he

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Speaker 1: would just he was just ridiculous. We I often had

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Speaker 1: to like, I just had to like unplug him all

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Speaker 1: the time. It was a really fun show to do.

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Speaker 3: The site really was on the cutting edge of so

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Speaker 3: much in tech and media, even in the way that

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Speaker 3: the show came to an end when Diana died, a

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Speaker 3: night that I vividly remember because my mother was obsessed

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Speaker 3: with her. The show was preempted for live breaking coverage

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Speaker 3: of her death. This was before the news looked and

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Speaker 3: functioned the way it does now, with twenty four hour

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Speaker 3: rolling updates and constant on air coverage. In that moment,

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Speaker 3: the network recognized that continuous live coverage was the direction

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Speaker 3: news and media was heading, and the site quietly slept

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Speaker 3: off the air as that new era began.

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Speaker 1: The site very much cutting edge right on MSNBC in

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Speaker 1: an era before cable news became round the clock breaking

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Speaker 1: the minute Princess Diana died. That's when the switch happened,

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Speaker 1: where suddenly everybody wanted updates really by the minute. They

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Speaker 1: needed to have rolling news all the time when there

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Speaker 1: was a breaking news story. And that's not really how

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Speaker 1: cable had been, which is kind of interesting. And so

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Speaker 1: the site launched with MSNBC in nineteen ninety six, but

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Speaker 1: we only lasted about a year and a bit because

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Speaker 1: you know, with just the format which was taped, which

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Speaker 1: it took us. You know, we were using modems right

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Speaker 1: fifty eight eight like to do a tech show, so

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Speaker 1: sometimes we have to like, let's stup, download and go

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Speaker 1: out to lunch, and it would take us an entire

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Speaker 1: day to shoot a one hour show.

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Speaker 2: And I remember when.

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Speaker 1: People said, you know, can you do six days a

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Speaker 1: week of shows? I was like, oh my god, I

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Speaker 1: don't think so, Like I just do not think so.

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Speaker 1: But of course you look back now and you think technology,

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Speaker 1: of course, so much to report on, so much talk about,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, I think we did get a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: and hopefully a lot of women and young women kind

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Speaker 1: of interested in tech. Because my approach was that I'm

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Speaker 1: not a technologist. I was just like a person and

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Speaker 1: I was interested in leveraging it for my use, and

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Speaker 1: I thought that was kind of an interesting POV versus

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Speaker 1: other folks who were very into you know, they were coders,

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Speaker 1: they were computer science majors, they really knew a lot

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Speaker 1: about tech, they wrote a lot about tech, and I

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Speaker 1: was just like, I would just like this to enhance

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Speaker 1: my life. I would like to figure out how to

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Speaker 1: use a website. I would like to figure out how

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Speaker 1: build a way. I would like to connect with ancestry

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Speaker 1: dot com and find long last relatives.

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Speaker 4: And it was a little more news you could use.

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Speaker 3: I think that's exactly the sort of orientation that we

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Speaker 3: come at with our show.

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Speaker 2: There are no girls on the internet.

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Speaker 3: So much tech reporting and tech media either focus on

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Speaker 3: people who are super techy, right, like I know the latest,

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Speaker 3: I have the latest, I'm already totally in that world,

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Speaker 3: or it's kind of coming at it from a business perspective,

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Speaker 3: what are these companies doing, what is OpenAI doing, what

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Speaker 3: is X doing?

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Speaker 2: And it really leaves out.

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Speaker 3: This big group of people who are using tech every

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Speaker 3: day are probably tech literate, digital natives, but there's not

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Speaker 3: really tech media and tech stories that are really aimed

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Speaker 3: at them. If they don't consider themselves techis if they

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Speaker 3: didn't you know, get an engineering degree or something like that.

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Speaker 2: And I do think that we.

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Speaker 3: Should be making tchech media and all kinds of media

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Speaker 3: that really gets at that group and says, hey, even

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Speaker 3: if you're not a techie, even if you're not a coder,

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Speaker 3: you still have a story to tell about how technology

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Speaker 3: shapes and shows up in you.

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Speaker 4: And this is the bulk of the people, right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the thing if you're looking at a like

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Speaker 1: a pie chart, these are most of the people are

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Speaker 1: not coders, and they're not people who are going to

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Speaker 1: be investing in AI startups, right. These are people who

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Speaker 1: are going to try to figure out how it's going

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Speaker 1: to impact them and how they're going to use it.

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Speaker 1: So I completely agree with you on that, And I

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Speaker 1: think the news sometimes falls short. A lot of news

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Speaker 1: coverage of tech, right is is your child cheating with AI?

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Speaker 4: Versus?

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Speaker 2: You know, what are the.

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Speaker 1: Really interesting things that you can do with AI? And

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Speaker 1: so I feel like the news doesn't really go far enough.

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Speaker 1: So I love that you do this show because I

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Speaker 1: do think you need a lane for people who want

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Speaker 1: to kind of embrace the technology but don't necessarily understand

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Speaker 1: it fully.

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Speaker 3: Solidad is the executive producer of the documentary The Perfect Neighbor,

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Speaker 3: which tells the story of the tragic death of Aj Owens,

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Speaker 3: a devoted mother of four in Ocala, Florida, who was

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Speaker 3: shot and killed by her neighbor, Susan Lawrens. Susan was

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Speaker 3: that kind of neighborhood, the one everyone in the community

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Speaker 3: new to a. She called nine to one one over

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Speaker 3: and over again to file complaints about the neighborhood kids,

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Speaker 3: including AJ's, who were simply playing or maybe being a

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Speaker 3: bit loud in the grassy shared space near all of

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Speaker 3: their homes. Susan would hurl slurs at the children and

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Speaker 3: even throw objects at them. Police officers would show up,

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Speaker 3: talk quietly amongst themselves, and leave with the impression that

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Speaker 3: something was off about Susan. But even after all those visits,

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Speaker 3: nothing really changed. Everything escalated when Aj knocked on Susan's

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Speaker 3: door to confront her about taking her son's iPad. Susan

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Speaker 3: fired a gun through her lock steel door, killing Aj,

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Speaker 3: and would later claim that she feared for her life.

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Speaker 3: The Perfect Neighbor has sparked widespread discussion online and renewed

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Speaker 3: scrutiny of so called stand your ground laws, how they

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Speaker 3: function in practice, and the real impact they have on communities.

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Speaker 3: I've wanted to talk to you for the longest, for

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Speaker 3: most of my life. But the thing that made me

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Speaker 3: want to reach out to you was watching the new

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Speaker 3: documentary on Netflix that you made with director dagon Beer,

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Speaker 3: The Perfect Neighbor. I don't know that I've one had

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Speaker 3: a reaction to a documentary like this before, and two

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Speaker 3: seen a reaction to a documentary like this before, and

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Speaker 3: I watch a lot of documentaries. I know this is

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Speaker 3: a story that you've been following since it first happened.

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Speaker 3: What was it about this story that you were drawn to.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, from our perspective, I mean as a journalist, right,

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Speaker 1: that's a story that crosses what we would say the wires,

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Speaker 1: although they're not really wires, but you read about it

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Speaker 1: and you just think, oh, my gosh, this is a

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Speaker 1: horrible standard ground case. I've covered a lot of those

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Speaker 1: standard ground case in Okawa, Florida, which is about four

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Speaker 1: hours from where I am right now. For Geeta, it

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Speaker 1: turned out that her husband's family was was friendly with

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Speaker 1: the woman.

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Speaker 3: Who was a victim.

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Speaker 4: Wo so aj Owens was one of those such a

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Speaker 4: close friend, almost considered like family. We're all family.

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Speaker 1: And so I think what she has said is that

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Speaker 1: when this happened, she was just like, what do we do?

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Speaker 1: You know, she's a filmmaker where journalists rose our city

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Speaker 1: is my producer and I so we are, we're big

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Speaker 1: and you just go go just send someone, go start

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Speaker 1: covering it. And so I think once that police bodycam

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Speaker 1: footage became something that had been gathered from the lawyers,

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Speaker 1: right this became a criminal case, became gathered from the lawyers,

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Speaker 1: suddenly you realize, like this could be a really interesting

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Speaker 1: vehicle to tell the story.

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Speaker 4: The editor is.

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Speaker 1: A young woman named Vidi Deanna Lieberman, and she's fantastic

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Speaker 1: and geta laughs about how at one point, you know

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Speaker 1: in the film, when you have everybody coming to the

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Speaker 1: scene of the ultimate crime, there's like twenty police. So

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Speaker 1: keep in mind everyone has a body cap, twenty body cams.

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Speaker 1: No one's actually shooting, right, they're just capturing. And the

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Speaker 1: editor has to sort of sort through off of a

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Speaker 1: giant disc or all this has just been dropped and

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Speaker 1: figure out what matches with what, how do you put

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Speaker 1: it together to tell a story.

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Speaker 4: So it's really a tremendous feat.

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Speaker 1: I mean, Gita obviously is a fantastic editor, and just

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Speaker 1: everything she does is fabulous and very as a director

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Speaker 1: also just really fantastic work.

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Speaker 3: So The Perfect Neighbor is not your typical documentary. There

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Speaker 3: are no talking heads, no narrator guiding you through the story. Instead,

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Speaker 3: everything unfolds through raw surveillance, police bodycam video, security footage,

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Speaker 3: interrogation room recordings. It creates this unsettling, unblinking view of

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Speaker 3: the case, showing everything from the immediate aftermath of the

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Speaker 3: murder itself to the disturbing reality of AJ's killer simply

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Speaker 3: living her life and moving in with family instead of

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Speaker 3: being arrested. We aren't told what happened. We see it,

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Speaker 3: and that makes it all the more chilling. Do you

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Speaker 3: have any sense of how the decision was made that

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Speaker 3: the film was going to be almost entirely constructed through

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Speaker 3: that kind of surveillance footage, whether it's bodycam footage or

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Speaker 3: the ring camera footage that we see.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think generally you always start with, well, so

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Speaker 1: how do we do this? And I think for Geeta,

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Speaker 1: and she's talked about this that you know, once it

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Speaker 1: became clear that you could almost do it as a thriller, right,

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Speaker 1: it actually reads as a true crime stoy. You watch

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Speaker 1: it unfold, and even though you start with the ending

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Speaker 1: and then you backtrack, you actually it unfolds like a thriller.

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Speaker 1: And Geta is also an editor herself, That's how she

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Speaker 1: got her start. So I think she really saw it

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Speaker 1: that way. And once you had the bodycam footage, I

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Speaker 1: think it really helped to do something that as reporters

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Speaker 1: we never do.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: Whenever there's a standard ground case, and I've covered a

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Speaker 1: handful of them, you go in the aftermath, right, you

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Speaker 1: interview people in the aftermath, and you pick and choose

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Speaker 1: who when it's the police pov, it's not my pov,

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Speaker 1: it's not Geeta's POV, it's not Very's pov. Right, this

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Speaker 1: is just from body cam, And so I think it

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Speaker 1: gives you a really interesting perspective that a lot of

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Speaker 1: people have said to me they felt like it was

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Speaker 1: much more true that they didn't. They didn't doubt like,

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Speaker 1: oh is this a spin? Because the police were not

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Speaker 1: shooting for us or anybody, They're just wearing body cams.

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Speaker 1: And so I think it's a really interesting look at

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Speaker 1: a story that unfolds in a terrible, terrible, deadly way,

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Speaker 1: and you can see step by step because of course

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Speaker 1: the police have been called basically two years of these

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Speaker 1: terrible interactions and minor interactions, right, some kind of in

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Speaker 1: a lot of way, stupid interactions that just escalated and

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Speaker 1: escalated to sus Lawrence shot her neighbor through her locked door.

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Speaker 3: So when we think about these standard ground cases, so

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Speaker 3: much of them, and especially you know, in the lead

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Speaker 3: up to you and then after the treyvon Martin incident,

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Speaker 3: so many of them are these sensationalized headlines that really

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Speaker 3: kind of the conversation just felt feels very insidiary to me, Right,

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Speaker 3: it's just this splashy headline you might get right wing

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Speaker 3: talking heads on TV. But the film really, to me

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Speaker 3: kind of demonstrates what it would actually look like, all

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Speaker 3: of the heartbreaking, horrifying details of what these cases would

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Speaker 3: actually look like. And I wonder do you feel that

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Speaker 3: that was an argument that was trying to be made

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Speaker 3: in this film of like, oh, people think that you

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Speaker 3: should be able to stand your ground and if you

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Speaker 3: feel threatened, you should be able to shoot anybody.

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Speaker 2: Through a closed door. This is what it would actually

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Speaker 2: look like if that was the case.

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Speaker 1: I think it's always important to show things as they are, right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, for me, documentaries are about getting in there

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Speaker 1: and saying, this is actually what it is, this is

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Speaker 1: how it unfolded, this is the ridiculously small incident that

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Speaker 1: really kept spiraling and spiraling and spiraling.

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Speaker 4: Right, it's this.

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Speaker 1: Is what exactly happened, and you can see it. And

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Speaker 1: so to me, I think that's really important. It allows

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Speaker 1: you to sort of help people again see not in

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Speaker 1: the aftermath, but is unfolding what exactly is happening. And

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Speaker 1: I don't think people really you know, I don't. Someone's

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Speaker 1: asked me the other day, you know, do you think

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Speaker 1: you'll help people change their mind on stand your ground?

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Speaker 1: I was like, I think most people don't really even

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Speaker 1: know what stand your ground really is, right. They don't

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Speaker 1: necessarily know it's a law, you know, but and it's

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Speaker 1: different in different states, But most people don't really know

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Speaker 1: exactly what it is. And so for me, I think

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Speaker 1: it's a really helpful way to understand that this woman

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Speaker 1: is not arrested right after there is a shooting. She

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Speaker 1: kills her neighbor, she shoots.

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Speaker 4: Through her locked doors.

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Speaker 1: No there's no guess about who did it, right, there's

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Speaker 1: nobody trying to figure out, oh my god, who was

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Speaker 1: the perpetrator. And yet she gets picked up by her

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Speaker 1: family and she goes away.

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Speaker 4: She's not in jail.

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Speaker 1: Why is that stand your ground right allows them to

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Speaker 1: do an investigation to see, you know, did she actually

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Speaker 1: fear for her life? And Susan certainly has had enough training,

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Speaker 1: if you will, right googling, to know that one of

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Speaker 1: the things you claim and stand your ground. I feared

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Speaker 1: for my life. I feeled for my life, I felt unsafe,

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Speaker 1: I feared for my life. So I think all of

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Speaker 1: that is a really fascinating insight into, as you say, right,

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Speaker 1: how these things actually unfold in real time.

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Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break at our back. I don't

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Speaker 3: even really know how to ask this, but in watching

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Speaker 3: the movie, I it the community reminded me of the

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Speaker 3: neighborhood where I grew up, Right, A bunch of kids

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Speaker 3: running around all the time, probably also being allowed that obnoxious.

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Speaker 3: I'll own that myself. A lot of adults who all

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Speaker 3: look out for the kids. And that's just the community

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Speaker 3: that you have. And having grown up in a community

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Speaker 3: like that, I know that it's like a precious thing.

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Speaker 3: It's like a like I'm able to look back so

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Speaker 3: fondly on my youth because that's where I was looking,

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Speaker 3: the kind of I was lucky enough to.

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Speaker 2: Grow up in. I don't even know how to word it.

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Speaker 3: I think that one of the things Susan was actually

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Speaker 3: mad at was that she lived in a place where

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Speaker 3: it was a multi racial community, where folks got along

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Speaker 3: and folks looked out for each other, and there was

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Speaker 3: something about that that.

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Speaker 2: Drove her that she could not stand. What do you

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Speaker 2: think about this?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I don't think you're wrong. I mean clearly right.

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Speaker 1: She would, you know, use racial slurs with small children.

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Speaker 1: So there was some major issue that she had around

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Speaker 1: her neighbors around race.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: You know what I thought was so interesting is that

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Speaker 1: you often hear like this is a calm, quiet neighborhood,

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Speaker 1: multi racial community, but to see it right, to see

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Speaker 1: how the police interact with the kids, to see how

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Speaker 1: the police are dapping the dad and the white mom

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Speaker 1: when the as so, which, you know, which kids are yours?

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Speaker 1: And she says, well, they're all mine, And she's not kidding.

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Speaker 1: She's like, in this neighborhood, we all kind of take

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Speaker 1: care of everybody, and then to see that collapse right

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Speaker 1: after the shooting, that sense of togetherness, that sense of hey,

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Speaker 1: the police are working with the community and everybody gets along.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty much gone.

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Speaker 3: Because they had something good that is like rare and

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Speaker 3: hard to find.

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Speaker 2: They really had something good.

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Speaker 1: Something great, I would argue, right, and again, I think

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Speaker 1: the things that surprise me were like, oh, this is

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Speaker 1: a community where everybody's just hanging out and getting along.

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Speaker 4: Number one.

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Speaker 1: Number two, here's a community where the police are constantly

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out. Yeah, we actually think this lady's

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Speaker 1: a little bit of a you know, crackpot, but we

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Speaker 1: got to tell you guys, you know, try to keep

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Speaker 1: it down a little bit. But on the other end,

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Speaker 1: their kids, they're doing kids things that could be much worse.

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Speaker 1: They're just playing. At one point, the little girl who says,

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Speaker 1: you know, we're eleven, because like, yes, they're small children,

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Speaker 1: and we know that, you know, especially kids of color

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Speaker 1: are often perceived to be older and more dangerous and

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Speaker 1: more worldly, et cetera, et cetera. So I think there

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Speaker 1: is a sense you really see like kids playing in

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Speaker 1: the neighborhood a lot. So yeah, you just those things

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Speaker 1: surprise me. When I first saw the video, I was like, Oh,

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Speaker 1: I don't know what I thought the police would be doing.

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Speaker 1: I don't know how young they were, how willing they

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Speaker 1: were to go back and forth and try to kind

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Speaker 1: of maintain the piece, if you will. Susan would call

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Speaker 1: the police constantly, but you know, the neighbors never called

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Speaker 1: the police on Susan, never, never, once.

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Speaker 3: You know, it was obvious to everybody that Susan was

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Speaker 3: a big problem.

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Speaker 2: There are so many red flags and the.

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Speaker 3: Way that the police talk about her among each other,

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Speaker 3: where they're like, Oh, it's her again, She's crazy.

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Speaker 2: Is there a sense from the neighbors do you think that?

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Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not even sure legally if there was

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Speaker 3: anything to be done, but frivolous call after frivolous call.

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Speaker 3: I do get a sense of I'm happy that the

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Speaker 3: police were so cool with the kids and the families.

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Speaker 3: But at a certain point, part of me is like,

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Speaker 3: if they had done something to let Susan know that

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Speaker 3: this behavior wasn't okay, perhaps we wouldn't even be having

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Speaker 3: this conversation right now. Y.

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Speaker 1: It's really an interesting question, and this have had this

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Speaker 1: discussion a lot right where people say the police should

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Speaker 1: have done something, And I think the rejoinder to that is,

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Speaker 1: no one ever called the police on Susan, right, I

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Speaker 1: mean not one. No one even said listen, I'm sick

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Speaker 1: of her calling the police on us. This is not okay,

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Speaker 1: She's obviously a problem. Do they just go and arrest people?

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Speaker 1: Are the calls relief frivolous? They go, they talk, They

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Speaker 1: you know, there's clearly some kind of a dispute, They

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Speaker 1: break it up.

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Speaker 4: For the most part, they move on. Yeah, it would

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Speaker 4: be amazing.

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Speaker 1: If the police had said we we see this problem.

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Speaker 1: And I think it really underscores the point of what's

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Speaker 1: being discussed with the standard ground laws, right, like, how

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Speaker 1: does a person who absolutely positively is a living, breathing

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Speaker 1: red flag get access to three guns?

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Speaker 2: Right? How is that possible?

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Speaker 1: How is it possible to No one says, you know,

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Speaker 1: this lady has a lot of guns. Maybe we should

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Speaker 1: rethink the fat right, No, never happens, And so I

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Speaker 1: think it is a classic sense of you know, the

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Speaker 1: person who is the perpect trader is the one who's

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Speaker 1: constantly calling the police. The other people who will end

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Speaker 1: up being the victims never called the police, and the

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Speaker 1: people who are really who really suffer at the end

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Speaker 1: of the day are those folks who always suffering stand

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Speaker 1: your ground laws, the people who who are victimized.

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Speaker 3: Susan shot and killed Aj through a locked steel door

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Speaker 3: while AJ's young son stood beside her, and afterward, Susan

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Speaker 3: was not immediately arrested. She claimed protection under Florida's stand

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Speaker 3: your Ground law, which allows a person to use force,

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Speaker 3: even deadly force, if they reasonably believe that they're facing

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Speaker 3: an imminent threat, without any duty to retreat. Investigators later

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Speaker 3: discovered that Susan had googled stand your ground laws before

437
00:21:42,320 --> 00:21:46,040
Speaker 3: the shooting, suggesting that she wasn't actually fearing for her life,

438
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:50,320
Speaker 3: but rather setting up the killing by researching exactly how

439
00:21:50,320 --> 00:21:53,399
Speaker 3: to frame her defense. What do you think about the

440
00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:56,119
Speaker 3: conversation that we're currently having about things like stand your

441
00:21:56,160 --> 00:21:59,679
Speaker 3: ground laws. Just recently, there was that horrible situation in

442
00:21:59,680 --> 00:22:02,960
Speaker 3: India where a cleaner came to the wrong house, knocked

443
00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:04,800
Speaker 3: on the door, and when she knocked on it, a

444
00:22:04,880 --> 00:22:08,080
Speaker 3: man shot and killed her through the shut door, and

445
00:22:08,119 --> 00:22:10,639
Speaker 3: the case was expected to test stan your ground laws

446
00:22:10,640 --> 00:22:14,400
Speaker 3: in Indiana, but ultimately that man was charged because prosecutors

447
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:17,240
Speaker 3: were like, listen, shooting somebody through a shut door simply

448
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:19,800
Speaker 3: because they knocked on it does not meet the requirements for.

449
00:22:19,840 --> 00:22:20,520
Speaker 2: Stand your ground.

450
00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:24,000
Speaker 3: Even if that person thought, well, I'm defending my home

451
00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:25,440
Speaker 3: because this person knocked.

452
00:22:25,200 --> 00:22:27,000
Speaker 2: On my door. And I don't know.

453
00:22:27,320 --> 00:22:31,119
Speaker 3: I just think that the conversation around crime have gotten

454
00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:34,320
Speaker 3: so out of control that when these things happen. Frankly,

455
00:22:34,400 --> 00:22:36,520
Speaker 3: I don't expect people to take a step back and say, well,

456
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:39,560
Speaker 3: wait a minute, should we have a culture where it's

457
00:22:39,600 --> 00:22:42,159
Speaker 3: normalized and okay to just shoot through a door and

458
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:43,200
Speaker 3: ask questions later?

459
00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:44,919
Speaker 4: It's crazy.

460
00:22:44,920 --> 00:22:47,000
Speaker 1: And again, there have been so many of these stories, right,

461
00:22:47,040 --> 00:22:49,240
Speaker 1: You and I could tick off, probably just off the

462
00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:51,520
Speaker 1: top of our heads without even having to google it,

463
00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:55,439
Speaker 1: five or six recent cases where someone's been shot or

464
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:58,800
Speaker 1: killed or both, you know, because of a you know,

465
00:22:58,840 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 1: clay and so inclaiming stand your ground. And I think

466
00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:04,680
Speaker 1: that person who does it feels justified, right, They feel

467
00:23:04,680 --> 00:23:06,560
Speaker 1: like I can protect my home and if I feel

468
00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:09,320
Speaker 1: even slightly afraid, even if it's just someone pulling into

469
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:11,639
Speaker 1: the wrong driveway, even if it's someone looking at for

470
00:23:11,680 --> 00:23:13,800
Speaker 1: the wrong house, even if it's someone who's just gone

471
00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 1: to the wrong place accidentally. I am justified in shooting

472
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:20,600
Speaker 1: that person and killing that person. So yeah, it's bizarre, right.

473
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: I think it's crazy that we've gotten here and what

474
00:23:22,560 --> 00:23:25,040
Speaker 1: you really see. And there's a slide at the end

475
00:23:25,040 --> 00:23:27,240
Speaker 1: of the documentary that points out, you know, the people

476
00:23:27,280 --> 00:23:30,160
Speaker 1: who really suffer from strand your ground laws are people

477
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:32,720
Speaker 1: of color. You know, those are the people who I

478
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:36,400
Speaker 1: don't have any proof for this, but I am very

479
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: confident that if Susan had been a black woman and

480
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:42,240
Speaker 1: she had shot a white lady through her locked door,

481
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:45,080
Speaker 1: she would have been arrested on the spot.

482
00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:45,440
Speaker 2: Right.

483
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:47,439
Speaker 1: There was a good there was no question who did it.

484
00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:50,960
Speaker 1: They weren't looking for the shooter. The idea that she

485
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,399
Speaker 1: was able to be free is obviously you see in

486
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:56,920
Speaker 1: the film what sets everybody and just you know off

487
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:00,760
Speaker 1: and makes them very angry about what potentially could happen.

488
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:03,120
Speaker 1: And so the family and the neighbors have to really

489
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:07,280
Speaker 1: start marching and calling attention to the crime because it could,

490
00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:11,520
Speaker 1: just like others, you know, become that salacious talking head

491
00:24:11,600 --> 00:24:16,240
Speaker 1: football that is, you know, some point stops being focused

492
00:24:16,280 --> 00:24:19,040
Speaker 1: on the case and starts being focused on the chaos.

493
00:24:20,040 --> 00:24:23,800
Speaker 3: The reaction to the film has been intense. One moment

494
00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:27,280
Speaker 3: that's been particularly talked about online is a harrowing scene

495
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 3: where AJ's children break down after learning that their mother

496
00:24:30,320 --> 00:24:33,320
Speaker 3: has been killed. It honestly, it is one of the

497
00:24:33,320 --> 00:24:36,359
Speaker 3: most gut wrenching things I have ever seen on screen.

498
00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:40,119
Speaker 3: It was a tragedy, and the way Aja's family has

499
00:24:40,160 --> 00:24:45,080
Speaker 3: responded echoes the tragedy of Emmett Till. In nineteen fifty five,

500
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:48,520
Speaker 3: fourteen year old Emmett Till was falsely accused of whistling

501
00:24:48,520 --> 00:24:51,800
Speaker 3: at a white woman while visiting family in Mississippi. He

502
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 3: was lynched and brutally mutilated. His mother made me Tell

503
00:24:56,800 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 3: made the courageous and history altering decision to hold an

504
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,720
Speaker 3: open casket funeral, saying that she wanted the world to

505
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:07,520
Speaker 3: see what had happened for themselves, saying, there was just

506
00:25:07,560 --> 00:25:09,639
Speaker 3: no way I could describe what was in that box,

507
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 3: no way, and I just wanted the world to see.

508
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:16,320
Speaker 3: Photos of Emmett Till's body were published in black publications

509
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 3: like Jet and The Chicago Defender, sparking national and international outrage.

510
00:25:22,119 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 3: One photograph from JET showing Maimie Tail at the funeral

511
00:25:25,359 --> 00:25:29,000
Speaker 3: standing over her son's mutilated corpse was named by Time

512
00:25:29,040 --> 00:25:31,600
Speaker 3: as one of the one hundred most influential images of

513
00:25:31,640 --> 00:25:32,119
Speaker 3: all time.

514
00:25:32,680 --> 00:25:35,040
Speaker 2: It ran with the caption quote.

515
00:25:35,280 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 3: For almost a century, African Americans were lynched with regularity

516
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:43,160
Speaker 3: and impunity. Now, thanks to a mother's determination to expose

517
00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,720
Speaker 3: the barbarousness of this crime, the public could no longer

518
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 3: pretend to ignore what they couldn't see. So while the

519
00:25:49,840 --> 00:25:52,960
Speaker 3: scene of AJ's children learning about their mother's murder is

520
00:25:53,040 --> 00:25:57,280
Speaker 3: deeply harrowing, it was included because AJ's family wanted the

521
00:25:57,280 --> 00:26:00,439
Speaker 3: truth to be told for everyone to see for themselves,

522
00:26:01,119 --> 00:26:04,920
Speaker 3: just like Mamie till the scene that I don't know

523
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 3: if I'll ever stop thinking about it, the scene when

524
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:10,680
Speaker 3: we see AJ's children.

525
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,520
Speaker 2: Being informed that their mom brutal been killed.

526
00:26:13,520 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 3: I mean I had to stop the movie to sob

527
00:26:16,320 --> 00:26:21,040
Speaker 3: because I was unable to continue watching. I've never seen

528
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:24,560
Speaker 3: a scene quite like that. I've seen some folks say like, oh,

529
00:26:24,600 --> 00:26:26,879
Speaker 3: this was too much. We as the audience should not

530
00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:28,840
Speaker 3: have been let into a moment like that. What do

531
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 3: you think about that?

532
00:26:30,080 --> 00:26:30,199
Speaker 2: Oh?

533
00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: I would say two things. So first is what Gita

534
00:26:32,600 --> 00:26:35,280
Speaker 1: has said in her conversations, And we've spent a lot

535
00:26:35,320 --> 00:26:38,399
Speaker 1: of time with the AJ's mom, Pamela Diaz, who's in

536
00:26:38,400 --> 00:26:40,919
Speaker 1: the film as well, but has also been I've been

537
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:42,920
Speaker 1: lots of panels with her, and she's done a lot

538
00:26:42,960 --> 00:26:45,320
Speaker 1: of sort of traveling with the doc is you go

539
00:26:45,359 --> 00:26:48,480
Speaker 1: to various film festivals, and she very clearly has said

540
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 1: she wanted to She saw this sort of as a

541
00:26:51,040 --> 00:26:52,400
Speaker 1: Mami till moment.

542
00:26:52,320 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 4: Right like that.

543
00:26:53,359 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: There was this opportunity to show the actual horror of

544
00:26:57,240 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: a horrible thing. So that's one thing. So it really

545
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:02,520
Speaker 1: did come with the permission, if.

546
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:05,440
Speaker 4: You will, of a family. Number two.

547
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: I think that off of that, this is a documentary

548
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: about a killing, and I don't think it's fair to

549
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:15,919
Speaker 1: do a documentary about a killing and then say, but actually,

550
00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:19,520
Speaker 1: we're not gonna get to the killing. I just think

551
00:27:19,640 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: the way AJ died was horrible, and I think the

552
00:27:22,640 --> 00:27:26,560
Speaker 1: audience needs to understand the impact on her children, on

553
00:27:26,640 --> 00:27:31,439
Speaker 1: the community, on everything is palpable, and I think people

554
00:27:31,520 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: have to understand that.

555
00:27:32,680 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 4: And I don't know that.

556
00:27:33,520 --> 00:27:37,120
Speaker 1: It's it's a good thing to clean that up, to say,

557
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:39,080
Speaker 1: this part's kind of hard to watch, so you know what,

558
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:41,040
Speaker 1: we're just going to clean this up for you.

559
00:27:41,480 --> 00:27:43,040
Speaker 3: I don't think so.

560
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:44,240
Speaker 4: I don't miss.

561
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:46,679
Speaker 1: This doc is about a killing and about a really

562
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 1: terrible policy that causes great harm to people of color.

563
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:55,640
Speaker 3: And I think that being the general public being really

564
00:27:55,680 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 3: removed from what this policy actually translates into the real

565
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 3: world harm on children, on moms, on communities, on families,

566
00:28:04,359 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 3: I think people do need to see that to understand, like, yeah,

567
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,679
Speaker 3: it is a public policy decision or conversation in addition

568
00:28:12,720 --> 00:28:14,800
Speaker 3: to being like a like a personal conversation.

569
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:19,119
Speaker 1: Absolutely, And also it's this is a documentary about a killing,

570
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,400
Speaker 1: a horrible killing, and we get to see the before,

571
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 1: the middle, and the after and the aftermath. And so

572
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: I think it would be a very weird decision to

573
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: sort of say, no, no, no, this part we're not

574
00:28:32,640 --> 00:28:33,120
Speaker 1: going to show.

575
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:36,159
Speaker 3: Yeah, And as you said, I think it should be

576
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 3: made clear that the family wants this story told.

577
00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 2: The family is out there.

578
00:28:40,480 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 3: They her surviving family members are adamant about this story

579
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:47,920
Speaker 3: being told. And I don't know, part of me feels

580
00:28:47,920 --> 00:28:51,000
Speaker 3: like it's a way like honoring their wishes is important,

581
00:28:51,000 --> 00:28:53,040
Speaker 3: honoring that legacy is important.

582
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:55,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it would be very different if they said, oh, absolutely,

583
00:28:56,360 --> 00:28:58,680
Speaker 1: you know, please don't. I think that would lead to

584
00:28:58,880 --> 00:29:03,240
Speaker 1: very challenging conversations. Frankly right, I think you'd have people

585
00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:05,680
Speaker 1: who said, listen, we should honor the family. Other people say, hey,

586
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 1: this is a story about a killing and try to

587
00:29:07,360 --> 00:29:10,240
Speaker 1: figure it out. But no, the family was very much

588
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: I think on board with the idea of like, people

589
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:14,760
Speaker 1: need to see how horrible this is, they need to

590
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: see the impact. There's also an im kept Pact campaign's

591
00:29:17,040 --> 00:29:18,520
Speaker 1: called standing in the Gap. I don't know if you've

592
00:29:18,600 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 1: learned about that. And you know, because again, something people

593
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,840
Speaker 1: don't realize once the press goes, once the pastors go,

594
00:29:25,160 --> 00:29:28,680
Speaker 1: once the lawyers go, you have families that are hurting

595
00:29:29,120 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: that actually need support, right, they're just left. And so

596
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 1: I think like being very clear and true and accurate

597
00:29:38,520 --> 00:29:39,480
Speaker 1: about that is very.

598
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 3: Important and keeping the conversation going, you know, once the

599
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:48,160
Speaker 3: film is no longer, you know the thing everyone is

600
00:29:48,160 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 3: talking about, making sure that that conversation can continue and

601
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 3: that we continue to educate folks on what these laws

602
00:29:55,040 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 3: actually look like and the way that they actually impact people.

603
00:29:57,520 --> 00:29:59,440
Speaker 4: Right, and who they impact the most.

604
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 3: You know, you used to be this journalist who was

605
00:30:02,400 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 3: really known for anchoring mainstream news outlets like see It En,

606
00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:09,800
Speaker 3: but more recently, you're making these important documentaries through your

607
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 3: production company and the production companies of others like Gidas.

608
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 3: Do you feel like you have more freedom to tell

609
00:30:16,200 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 3: stories in a different way, the way that you maybe

610
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 3: you know, couldn't if you were still anchoring mainstream news outlets.

611
00:30:24,040 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: I think the real difference is that you just get

612
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 1: a lot of time. So if you're able to sell

613
00:30:29,840 --> 00:30:31,320
Speaker 1: a dock, and you get a buyer, and you have

614
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:33,080
Speaker 1: a good story, and you you know, you're sort of

615
00:30:33,080 --> 00:30:36,480
Speaker 1: able to go ahead and produce the doc you know,

616
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: you get to really kind of wrap a lot of

617
00:30:39,240 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 1: time around a story. Whereas in daily news, as you know,

618
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: you know, you're just NonStop talking, talking, talking, docking. You

619
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 1: might have a little bit of time to kind of

620
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:51,680
Speaker 1: give some context, but often you don't, especially in live

621
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:54,400
Speaker 1: cable news. And so I what I've liked, I mean,

622
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,520
Speaker 1: I love doing cable news, but I really have liked

623
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:59,240
Speaker 1: the time. You know, you're not giving people a ten

624
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 1: second sound by and saying, you know, here, let me

625
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: explain the story to you. Here's their SoundBite. They're they're

626
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:07,840
Speaker 1: giving it right. We get to tell the entire story

627
00:31:07,880 --> 00:31:10,000
Speaker 1: over a fairly long period of time, So you really

628
00:31:10,080 --> 00:31:14,280
Speaker 1: understand the context. And I think in cases where as

629
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: people don't trust journalists as much, you know, day after

630
00:31:18,280 --> 00:31:20,480
Speaker 1: day when we were looking at a Pew research study

631
00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:23,040
Speaker 1: that I said, something like forty four percent of Americans

632
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:27,400
Speaker 1: say they don't trust journal terrible number. I like the

633
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: idea of being out of it, just, you know, like

634
00:31:30,960 --> 00:31:33,800
Speaker 1: we're not in it. There's no I'm not in the

635
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: middle of it saying here's my perspective on this story,

636
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 1: and I met with these people, right, It's just this

637
00:31:38,360 --> 00:31:40,800
Speaker 1: is how it went down with the police who were

638
00:31:40,800 --> 00:31:43,560
Speaker 1: called to the scene. And so I think that's actually

639
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,160
Speaker 1: really part of the reason the film is doing so

640
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:49,000
Speaker 1: well is that people believe it, you know, they just

641
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,080
Speaker 1: they just don't think there's an agenda. There's no here's

642
00:31:52,120 --> 00:31:54,880
Speaker 1: how I feel about it. Here's how Geeta feels about it,

643
00:31:54,920 --> 00:31:57,400
Speaker 1: Here's how a Message Pictures feels about it. Right, it's

644
00:31:57,440 --> 00:32:00,040
Speaker 1: this is what happened, and we're going to show it

645
00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,479
Speaker 1: to you fully. So I think that's a real plus.

646
00:32:04,520 --> 00:32:06,480
Speaker 3: And it goes back to what you were saying about

647
00:32:06,480 --> 00:32:08,640
Speaker 3: the choice to use a lot of or mostly police

648
00:32:08,680 --> 00:32:11,640
Speaker 3: surveillance footage and ring camera footage and interrogation.

649
00:32:11,200 --> 00:32:15,120
Speaker 2: Footage that the facts speak for themselves, right.

650
00:32:15,160 --> 00:32:19,880
Speaker 3: We see it's not like Guito was there on the

651
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:22,959
Speaker 3: site with cameras filming a story for a certain perspective.

652
00:32:23,440 --> 00:32:24,840
Speaker 2: It's just what happened.

653
00:32:24,960 --> 00:32:27,680
Speaker 3: And there's not really no one can say like, ah,

654
00:32:27,960 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 3: this seems like women of color were biased for a

655
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 3: certain perspective here. It's just what happened, yes, case in point.

656
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 3: One of Solodad's latest projects is a new short documentary

657
00:32:40,280 --> 00:32:43,440
Speaker 3: called The Devil Is Busy, now streaming on HBO Max.

658
00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 3: The film follows a day in the life of Tracy,

659
00:32:46,960 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 3: the head of security at a Georgia abortion clinic, and

660
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 3: the relentless work that she does to keep the clinic

661
00:32:52,920 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 3: operating safely. We watch Tracy begin her day at the

662
00:32:56,680 --> 00:33:01,120
Speaker 3: clinic with a prayer, navigate confrontations with anti abortion protesters

663
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:04,040
Speaker 3: who are such a constant presence at the clinic that

664
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 3: Tracy knows them all by name, and support the clinic's clients,

665
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 3: many of whom have traveled overnight from out of state

666
00:33:10,880 --> 00:33:15,800
Speaker 3: due to increasingly restrictive abortion laws. The documentary offers a powerful,

667
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:19,520
Speaker 3: ground level, humanizing view. The challenge is based by those

668
00:33:19,560 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 3: working to provide reproductive healthcare in our current landscape.

669
00:33:25,760 --> 00:33:27,720
Speaker 1: We kind of had the similar strategy with The Devil

670
00:33:27,800 --> 00:33:30,920
Speaker 1: Is Busy. Gita is one of the directors on that

671
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:35,480
Speaker 1: doc as well, because she's amazing, So, you know, same thing, right,

672
00:33:35,560 --> 00:33:38,600
Speaker 1: No one's in it directing the traffic, no one's picking

673
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:40,120
Speaker 1: I'm going to pick this person, and we're going to

674
00:33:40,200 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 1: lead with this.

675
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:41,000
Speaker 2: You know.

676
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: It is the story of woman's day, a woman who's

677
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 1: kind of complicated and contradictory and an interesting character that

678
00:33:48,800 --> 00:33:51,080
Speaker 1: you don't see a lot, right, A deeply religious woman

679
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:55,240
Speaker 1: who's the security guard at an abortion clinic. Usually the

680
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:57,920
Speaker 1: deeply religious people are the people who are the protesters

681
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:00,600
Speaker 1: out kind of on the street making old n and

682
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:03,880
Speaker 1: so we really like that. We just, you know, we're

683
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:08,000
Speaker 1: looking at this story through through her eyes, Tracy's Tracy's

684
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,319
Speaker 1: journey is what tells us what happens. I'm not in

685
00:34:10,400 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not interviewing anybody. The director of that,

686
00:34:13,320 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 1: along with GETA, is Crystaline Hampton, who we do tons

687
00:34:16,040 --> 00:34:18,600
Speaker 1: of projects with. And again, I guess what I would

688
00:34:18,640 --> 00:34:20,839
Speaker 1: also point out was a complete sidebar, but it will

689
00:34:20,880 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: be interesting to you. So often in TV news and

690
00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:28,399
Speaker 1: journalism and even film, of any kind. There's this idea

691
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:30,280
Speaker 1: of like, if we could only just find the black people,

692
00:34:30,280 --> 00:34:33,040
Speaker 1: if we could just find the people of color, you know,

693
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:34,839
Speaker 1: And I just want to say, as I'm naming them,

694
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: I'm like a woman of color, black director, you know,

695
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:42,879
Speaker 1: Sam Paullard, black executive. Like there's it's just when you're

696
00:34:42,960 --> 00:34:46,320
Speaker 1: really intentional, it's not that hard. So that's a complete

697
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 1: sidebar to what we're talking about. But for me, every

698
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:53,680
Speaker 1: project we've done, we've been so intentional about finding and

699
00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 1: centering directors. And Geeta is just a really she's a

700
00:34:57,719 --> 00:35:00,480
Speaker 1: kind of an amazing mentor because what she does is

701
00:35:00,520 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 1: she takes people and she sort of grows them, and

702
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:04,880
Speaker 1: then she'll say, Okay, now you're ready to be the

703
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: director on this or you're ready, so we're starting another

704
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:10,920
Speaker 1: project with another one of the young women. That's anybody

705
00:35:10,920 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 1: who's younger than me, young women who you know, will

706
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 1: be directing this project for us, right. But really was

707
00:35:16,600 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: kind of grown up, if you will, under Gita and

708
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: I just love people who are so aggressive about not

709
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:25,080
Speaker 1: just mentoring and saying I'm gonna give you some you

710
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:27,520
Speaker 1: go girl, going to give you some good words of advice,

711
00:35:27,520 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 1: but like, now we slot you here. Now you need

712
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: experience doing this. Now you actually need this. Now you're

713
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 1: going to do this. And she's very intentional about it,

714
00:35:35,560 --> 00:35:38,400
Speaker 1: and I've always really appreciated that because a lot of

715
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:40,879
Speaker 1: people talk about it, but very few people actually do it.

716
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 2: As you know, how did you Ben Ghita start working together?

717
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:47,839
Speaker 4: That's such a good question. It's been such a long time.

718
00:35:48,000 --> 00:35:49,319
Speaker 4: I'm sure I'm gonna get our.

719
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:53,400
Speaker 1: Like origin story wrong. I don't remember the real story.

720
00:35:53,400 --> 00:35:55,320
Speaker 1: But we were working on a couple of other projects

721
00:35:55,360 --> 00:35:58,279
Speaker 1: before this one. And you know, she just has an

722
00:35:58,280 --> 00:36:02,400
Speaker 1: amazing track record. You know, google her CV and you'll

723
00:36:02,440 --> 00:36:04,919
Speaker 1: be blown away. I think this year she's got three

724
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:07,600
Speaker 1: projects that are all up for rewards. I mean, she's remarkable.

725
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:10,120
Speaker 1: But again, I think she can do that because she

726
00:36:10,200 --> 00:36:12,160
Speaker 1: has a lot of support and a lot of people

727
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:14,319
Speaker 1: who are working on these projects with her, who she

728
00:36:14,480 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: trusts implicitly. But we started working on a project actually

729
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:20,279
Speaker 1: about young people who are hungry in college. We had

730
00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:25,320
Speaker 1: met this woman, a friend who ran the journalism department

731
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,719
Speaker 1: at a school, and she said, you know, some of

732
00:36:28,719 --> 00:36:32,000
Speaker 1: the students are sleeping in the journalism office and she

733
00:36:32,040 --> 00:36:34,000
Speaker 1: thought they were just kind of like crashing there on

734
00:36:34,040 --> 00:36:36,759
Speaker 1: a late night, but they actually had no housing that

735
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:39,560
Speaker 1: they were hungry. And another woman did a study. She's

736
00:36:39,600 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 1: the kind of the center of our doc, Sarah Goldgrop,

737
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:48,000
Speaker 1: and she was saying that, you know, originally when she

738
00:36:48,040 --> 00:36:49,680
Speaker 1: did her study, she thought it was kind of like

739
00:36:49,719 --> 00:36:51,839
Speaker 1: the sad story of a handful of students who are

740
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 1: just in a fifty percent five zero percent of students

741
00:36:56,600 --> 00:37:00,399
Speaker 1: have had food and security in college, Like that's insane.

742
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 1: And so we decided to do that project. And I

743
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 1: think you to strategy and telling that story was it

744
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 1: just it just made for a beautiful, beautiful doc. So

745
00:37:09,520 --> 00:37:11,640
Speaker 1: you know, every single thing that we have done together

746
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:13,200
Speaker 1: has just been a home run.

747
00:37:13,560 --> 00:37:15,440
Speaker 3: I don't know, thinking about some of the projects that

748
00:37:15,480 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 3: I know that you all have worked on together, I've

749
00:37:17,560 --> 00:37:21,319
Speaker 3: obviously seen the perfect neighbor. I've seen the devil is busy.

750
00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:24,040
Speaker 3: It strikes me as the kind of topics that are

751
00:37:24,080 --> 00:37:29,280
Speaker 3: so important that definitely impact traditionally marginalized people, so subsequently

752
00:37:29,280 --> 00:37:31,759
Speaker 3: they're not told, you know, the way that they maybe

753
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 3: should be.

754
00:37:32,440 --> 00:37:35,080
Speaker 4: We don't run into a lot of people. Yeah, I

755
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 4: used to say that all the time.

756
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 1: Someone would say to me, you know when we started

757
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:40,640
Speaker 1: doing our Black and America documentaries for CNN, we didn't

758
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:43,439
Speaker 1: for about nine, nine or ten years, and I would

759
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:44,640
Speaker 1: just say, you know what I liked about it was

760
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 1: you just didn't run into people. You know that John

761
00:37:47,840 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: Banay Ramsay, it was me and ninety nine other reporters,

762
00:37:50,600 --> 00:37:53,800
Speaker 1: you know, doing the ten year anniversary of the murder

763
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 1: of this four little girl. But when it comes to

764
00:37:57,160 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: these complicated social issues, you know, you're just out there

765
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,839
Speaker 1: alone reporting them, which is unfortunate because I think they're

766
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:04,719
Speaker 1: really important.

767
00:38:08,160 --> 00:38:20,759
Speaker 3: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.

768
00:38:22,680 --> 00:38:27,040
Speaker 3: Solodad makes documentaries about important issues like stand your Ground

769
00:38:27,040 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 3: and reproductive justice, topics that many people are probably used

770
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:34,319
Speaker 3: to seeing addressed in quick segments on the news, but

771
00:38:34,480 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 3: documentary filmmaking allows for a deeper exploration, not just of

772
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,400
Speaker 3: the issues themselves, but the real people at their center.

773
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 3: Do you think there are stories that lend themselves very

774
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 3: well to documentary, like actually telling someone's story and then

775
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:50,720
Speaker 3: you see them and you hear them in their own words.

776
00:38:51,200 --> 00:38:53,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I do, But I almost could argue

777
00:38:53,280 --> 00:38:56,560
Speaker 1: that for every story, right, if you have a good character, right.

778
00:38:56,600 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 1: The thing I hate the word character because it makes

779
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:00,439
Speaker 1: it seem very fake. But if you have a good

780
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:04,400
Speaker 1: central person that you're following right, that you have access

781
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:06,840
Speaker 1: to that story, and you have a really compelling person,

782
00:39:07,560 --> 00:39:09,719
Speaker 1: then you've got a great doc or even a great

783
00:39:09,760 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 1: short story. I mean, I just think you just need

784
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: you need those elements to be pretty amazing, and then yeah,

785
00:39:15,960 --> 00:39:18,480
Speaker 1: I think people can speak for themselves. It's why I

786
00:39:18,520 --> 00:39:21,480
Speaker 1: love documentaries. But I like a lot of forms. I

787
00:39:21,560 --> 00:39:25,279
Speaker 1: like podcasts a lot, love I love sixty minutes, I

788
00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:28,239
Speaker 1: love you know, I just like I like news. I

789
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 1: sometimes I feel a little unfulfilled because I think, you know,

790
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:35,040
Speaker 1: giving people a minute twenty on a story that really

791
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:38,320
Speaker 1: needs a lot more context is sometimes frustrating. But I

792
00:39:38,960 --> 00:39:40,400
Speaker 1: like all sorts of platforms.

793
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:46,359
Speaker 3: Side note, I love your iHeart podcast about JFK. Yeah,

794
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:49,040
Speaker 3: solo Dad likes podcasts so much that she also makes

795
00:39:49,080 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 3: those two. She did a ten part series exploring Who

796
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:56,759
Speaker 3: Killed JFK? With Rob Reiner. Yes that Rob Reiner, who

797
00:39:56,800 --> 00:39:58,880
Speaker 3: first came to prominence as the son in law on

798
00:39:58,920 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 3: the seventies CBS to Come All in the Family and

799
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:04,920
Speaker 3: went on to make truly iconic films like This Is

800
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:08,200
Speaker 3: Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, The Princess Bride, when Harry

801
00:40:08,280 --> 00:40:11,200
Speaker 3: met Sally, and my personal favorite, The First Wives Club,

802
00:40:11,520 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 3: and pretty much every other movie that you probably liked

803
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 3: in the eighties and nineties.

804
00:40:15,960 --> 00:40:18,279
Speaker 4: It was really it wasn't that a great podcast?

805
00:40:18,480 --> 00:40:19,000
Speaker 2: Oh my god? It?

806
00:40:19,000 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 4: Plus I love Rob Reiner was amazing, you too, should like.

807
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:24,960
Speaker 1: I don't know you you make the show on the road, right,

808
00:40:25,080 --> 00:40:26,640
Speaker 1: That's what I gotta I gotta call him and tell

809
00:40:26,680 --> 00:40:29,080
Speaker 1: him that. Two Petty's got this other gig that the

810
00:40:29,120 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 1: movie director thing he does. I guess he's working on

811
00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:34,120
Speaker 1: Spinal Tap two, which will be oh yeah, of course,

812
00:40:34,120 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 1: because Spinal Tap one was amazing. But yeah, that was

813
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:39,360
Speaker 1: a great project. But I have to tell you something.

814
00:40:39,880 --> 00:40:43,799
Speaker 1: He was awesome, Like he just is the kindest night.

815
00:40:43,880 --> 00:40:47,319
Speaker 1: He was just so complimentary, wonderful to work with, the

816
00:40:47,440 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: nicest human being to everybody. As you know, sometimes people

817
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,000
Speaker 1: come in and you know, if they're a big mucky muck,

818
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:56,120
Speaker 1: they might not be the nicest to you know, somebody

819
00:40:56,120 --> 00:41:00,319
Speaker 1: who's you know, who's who's recording them, or if things

820
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,000
Speaker 1: going wrong and we can't figure it out, you know,

821
00:41:02,000 --> 00:41:04,400
Speaker 1: and it's taking a little time. He just you could

822
00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:08,759
Speaker 1: not ask for a cooler, nicer, more wonderful human being

823
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: than Rob Ryder. It was such a pleasure to work

824
00:41:11,200 --> 00:41:13,759
Speaker 1: with him. I literally enjoyed every moment of it.

825
00:41:14,280 --> 00:41:15,600
Speaker 2: That makes me so happy to hear.

826
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:22,239
Speaker 3: You know, they say, don't meet your heroes, but I'm happy.

827
00:41:18,719 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 2: So very nice people.

828
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 1: I've got some other names for you that I'll tell

829
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:25,600
Speaker 1: you not to meet. But Rob Reiner is amazing. He

830
00:41:25,640 --> 00:41:27,400
Speaker 1: was amazing, And I just I don't know, I just

831
00:41:27,480 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 1: love watching people who are kind to the person who's

832
00:41:31,000 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 1: taking in his audio, who's amazing, to the ap who's great,

833
00:41:36,160 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: to the PA who's like, anybody need water. I just

834
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:41,359
Speaker 1: love that, you know, because often people, as you know,

835
00:41:41,480 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 1: in this business, are really not. And so it was

836
00:41:43,680 --> 00:41:45,319
Speaker 1: amazing and I did. I loved him, and he was

837
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:47,760
Speaker 1: my hero, my dad. He was my dad's favorite character.

838
00:41:47,800 --> 00:41:49,680
Speaker 1: Of course, you know, we watched all in the family.

839
00:41:50,120 --> 00:41:53,680
Speaker 1: So like you talked about, you know, your mom, if

840
00:41:53,719 --> 00:41:56,520
Speaker 1: your mom was still alive, she'd be impressed by our

841
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:58,880
Speaker 1: interview my dad. My dad would be done if he

842
00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:00,799
Speaker 1: were still alive and he that I was doing a

843
00:42:00,800 --> 00:42:02,359
Speaker 1: project with Robert, like that would be it.

844
00:42:02,440 --> 00:42:07,000
Speaker 4: He'd be like, now now I can die because he's yeah,

845
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 4: she's made it.

846
00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:10,120
Speaker 2: My baby went to Harvard, she's been on TV.

847
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 4: But now this is exactly that doesn't care. Doesn't care,

848
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:13,759
Speaker 4: It doesn't care.

849
00:42:14,400 --> 00:42:18,440
Speaker 3: Now, Yeah, oh, you know, I I one of the

850
00:42:18,800 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 3: kind of to wrap up here. I was reading your

851
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:26,799
Speaker 3: your comments to Variety about just the state of journalism

852
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 3: and media, and one of the things that we focus

853
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:31,279
Speaker 3: on here at the podcast is especially things like mis

854
00:42:31,320 --> 00:42:34,960
Speaker 3: and disinformation. And I feel like I don't know part

855
00:42:35,000 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 3: of me. I jokingly I've said, I feel like we

856
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:38,880
Speaker 3: have lost the fight. You know, we gave it a

857
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:39,920
Speaker 3: good shot.

858
00:42:40,600 --> 00:42:42,799
Speaker 1: Sometimes people ask me like, so what do you do,

859
00:42:42,840 --> 00:42:46,040
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I honestly don't know. I don't I

860
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:47,800
Speaker 1: look at I mean what. I used to spend a

861
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:49,560
Speaker 1: lot of time on Twitter, but I find it really

862
00:42:49,800 --> 00:42:53,120
Speaker 1: scary to forward videos and things because I just don't

863
00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:58,239
Speaker 1: can't verify if their true AI is so good, it

864
00:42:58,239 --> 00:42:59,320
Speaker 1: could be so deceptive.

865
00:42:59,360 --> 00:43:01,080
Speaker 4: Frankly, that's just I don't.

866
00:43:01,120 --> 00:43:01,279
Speaker 2: You know.

867
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:03,239
Speaker 1: There's so many things that I just don't know, and

868
00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:05,839
Speaker 1: there's so much information coming across the trans so it's

869
00:43:05,880 --> 00:43:08,960
Speaker 1: really hard to follow. So I try not to weigh

870
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:11,879
Speaker 1: in on things that I haven't specifically covered and spent

871
00:43:12,000 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 1: time on because I don't want to be that person

872
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 1: who passes along things that are inappropriate and you know,

873
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:21,239
Speaker 1: and just untrue. But it is a crazy time, and

874
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,600
Speaker 1: it is I don't see I don't see a near

875
00:43:24,640 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 1: future where it improves.

876
00:43:27,440 --> 00:43:29,239
Speaker 3: I mean, I was going to ask if, when you

877
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 3: think about the future of journalism and media, are you

878
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:33,680
Speaker 3: hopeful about where we might be going.

879
00:43:33,719 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 2: It sounds like maybe not so much.

880
00:43:35,600 --> 00:43:35,680
Speaker 3: No.

881
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:38,719
Speaker 1: I mean that I think disinformation and misinformation is a

882
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:42,040
Speaker 1: different category and journalism generally, which is also struggling at

883
00:43:42,040 --> 00:43:44,160
Speaker 1: this moment, as you well know. But yeah, I think

884
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: that the history of journalism has been like this, right

885
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:50,680
Speaker 1: We've had really highs and lows, and so I think

886
00:43:50,719 --> 00:43:52,680
Speaker 1: there's lots of I think they're great journalists out there

887
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:54,239
Speaker 1: who are doing really good work. I think it's a

888
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:57,960
Speaker 1: very challenging time for a host of reasons, and with

889
00:43:58,040 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: a host of people there trying to interview and people

890
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:02,560
Speaker 1: they're working for and people they're trying to put on TV.

891
00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:06,319
Speaker 1: So I think it's a bad time for journalists. But

892
00:44:06,520 --> 00:44:09,120
Speaker 1: I do think there there's always these ups and downs,

893
00:44:09,320 --> 00:44:11,719
Speaker 1: you know, where people love journalism right now, people love

894
00:44:11,760 --> 00:44:14,200
Speaker 1: their local news. They trust their local news, you know,

895
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: and yet local news is you know, there's local news.

896
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:21,719
Speaker 1: Stations and papers are dropping every day, every day they disappear.

897
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: So we have to solve a bunch of problems, including monetization,

898
00:44:26,320 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: before we can say, like, yes, journalism is going to

899
00:44:29,040 --> 00:44:33,320
Speaker 1: be saved, because frankly, a lot of the garbage is

900
00:44:33,600 --> 00:44:38,719
Speaker 1: is very you know, worth it due to you know,

901
00:44:38,760 --> 00:44:41,160
Speaker 1: it's just not expensive. It's cheap, and to do good

902
00:44:41,160 --> 00:44:44,839
Speaker 1: reporting is expensive. And so you know, I understand why

903
00:44:44,880 --> 00:44:47,880
Speaker 1: people pick the cheap talking heads yelling at each other version.

904
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:52,000
Speaker 1: It's easier and it's cheaper, and I think.

905
00:44:51,920 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 3: It speaks to the model that you were just talking

906
00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:58,000
Speaker 3: about with documentary, where you can spend a long time

907
00:44:58,000 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 3: telling a story. You can tell a story over an

908
00:45:00,520 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 3: hour and change or two hours.

909
00:45:01,960 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 2: And people are gonna rock with you. You can you can.

910
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,719
Speaker 3: I mean, I love documentary. Get a weekend spent and

911
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:09,440
Speaker 3: watching documentaries is a good weekend for me.

912
00:45:09,520 --> 00:45:11,520
Speaker 2: But I know not everybody feels that way.

913
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:14,800
Speaker 3: But the fact that you told a story about stand

914
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:17,960
Speaker 3: your ground laws and it was the everybody was talking

915
00:45:17,960 --> 00:45:18,279
Speaker 3: about it.

916
00:45:18,200 --> 00:45:20,240
Speaker 2: It was the thing that people were talking about.

917
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:22,760
Speaker 3: I don't necessarily see news stories on the news where

918
00:45:22,880 --> 00:45:24,160
Speaker 3: people are moved in that way.

919
00:45:24,280 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 2: So I do. I do think it's it's.

920
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:27,200
Speaker 4: The last time I saw that.

921
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:29,400
Speaker 1: I would say Katrina, right, like, if you could think

922
00:45:29,440 --> 00:45:31,759
Speaker 1: of a time where everybody was talking about a thing,

923
00:45:31,880 --> 00:45:33,840
Speaker 1: was Hurricane Katrina. And it was a time. I was

924
00:45:33,840 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 1: telling someone yesterday that we were coming back. When I

925
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 1: was covering Katrina, we'd spend a month in New Orleans

926
00:45:39,680 --> 00:45:42,040
Speaker 1: and the month out, you know, back and forth, my

927
00:45:42,080 --> 00:45:44,440
Speaker 1: co anker would go in and back and forth. And

928
00:45:44,840 --> 00:45:49,280
Speaker 1: I remember we were coming through the Baton Rouge Airport.

929
00:45:49,360 --> 00:45:53,080
Speaker 1: So I'm leaving at the end of my month, and

930
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: and we haven't showered because of course there was no showers,

931
00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:57,920
Speaker 1: and it's we're all really dirty. Although my hair does

932
00:45:57,960 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 1: get better the dirty or it is, so I was

933
00:45:59,719 --> 00:46:03,799
Speaker 1: actually fine on that front, but we're just gross. And

934
00:46:03,840 --> 00:46:05,759
Speaker 1: I remember I had my CNN cap on because of

935
00:46:05,800 --> 00:46:08,640
Speaker 1: course everything was gross. And we got a standing ovation.

936
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: We got a standing ovation in the Baton Rouge Deep

937
00:46:12,000 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 1: South Airport CNN. And I just remember thinking, like, that's

938
00:46:16,040 --> 00:46:19,239
Speaker 1: because we are doing the thing that we're supposed to do, right,

939
00:46:19,280 --> 00:46:20,520
Speaker 1: We're getting a standing ovation.

940
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:22,880
Speaker 4: Not for me. Or any of the people we're.

941
00:46:22,719 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: Getting a stand in FASI because they feel like, yes,

942
00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:26,600
Speaker 1: that was what we needed you to do. Yes, that

943
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:29,239
Speaker 1: And I think the same thing with perfect neighbor, right,

944
00:46:29,280 --> 00:46:32,120
Speaker 1: it's like, yes, thank you, thank you for helping us

945
00:46:32,160 --> 00:46:33,160
Speaker 1: understand this story.

946
00:46:33,200 --> 00:46:33,520
Speaker 2: Thank you.

947
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:38,400
Speaker 3: I hate the way that journalists are demonized today, but

948
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:41,400
Speaker 3: that I think that story People do actually want to

949
00:46:41,400 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 3: have their story told authentically and thoughtfully and truthfully.

950
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 2: People do want to hear these stories. I don't know.

951
00:46:47,640 --> 00:46:49,360
Speaker 2: I think it's it's very easy.

952
00:46:49,120 --> 00:46:51,839
Speaker 3: For me personally to get caught up in I'm so

953
00:46:52,000 --> 00:46:54,279
Speaker 3: angry about the way that people trash journalists, and I

954
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 3: feel that way, but not buying into it that everybody

955
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 3: feels that way, because people do there is trust when

956
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:03,840
Speaker 3: when stories are told well and authentically, there is trust.

957
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:06,320
Speaker 1: Listen, when we were doing Black in America for CNN,

958
00:47:06,360 --> 00:47:08,239
Speaker 1: the number of people are like, why would we do this?

959
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:11,880
Speaker 1: You guys never come here, You never come to our neighborhood,

960
00:47:12,360 --> 00:47:14,000
Speaker 1: you know, And it was a lot of work to

961
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:15,920
Speaker 1: get people to understand, here's what we're trying to do.

962
00:47:16,080 --> 00:47:17,840
Speaker 1: It's a documentary sticks out, you know.

963
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:19,080
Speaker 4: But I get it.

964
00:47:19,160 --> 00:47:23,520
Speaker 1: So, I mean some of the lack of trust is earned. Right,

965
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: it's earned. And when people say to me, so, how

966
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:27,919
Speaker 1: do you get back trust? I always say that it's

967
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:31,360
Speaker 1: like the bad boyfriend theory. You know, there's no baby,

968
00:47:31,360 --> 00:47:33,840
Speaker 1: you gotta trust me. Rights it is you have to

969
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:36,000
Speaker 1: be trustworthy, right, you got to show up again and

970
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:39,160
Speaker 1: again and again and be trustworthy. Like there's no other

971
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:41,960
Speaker 1: way to get people's trust than to do that. And

972
00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: so I really think that that, you know, that's what's

973
00:47:45,640 --> 00:47:47,960
Speaker 1: going to happen. So to some degree, you know, journalism

974
00:47:48,040 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 1: has made some big errors and lost some trust. I mean,

975
00:47:52,239 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 1: I remember when I worked at Keene cyn End. It

976
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:55,279
Speaker 1: was just a long time ago that it's probably been

977
00:47:55,280 --> 00:47:57,880
Speaker 1: almost a dozen years. I don't know if you remember this.

978
00:47:58,160 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 1: They had this breaking news you know when they they

979
00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 1: had the app and you had the breath and you

980
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:03,759
Speaker 1: get the app and it was Britney Spears had cut

981
00:48:03,800 --> 00:48:04,120
Speaker 1: her hair.

982
00:48:04,200 --> 00:48:06,560
Speaker 2: Do you know that came in.

983
00:48:06,560 --> 00:48:09,799
Speaker 1: Breaking news, Breaking news app that's Britney Spears had cut

984
00:48:09,800 --> 00:48:12,480
Speaker 1: her hair. You're just like, do you realize how much

985
00:48:12,520 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 1: you undermine when you're doing other news about how there

986
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:20,799
Speaker 1: has been a tsunami or there has been a hurricane,

987
00:48:20,920 --> 00:48:23,720
Speaker 1: or there has been a shoot, right, Like you realize

988
00:48:23,760 --> 00:48:26,799
Speaker 1: when you put Brittany in this thing, God bless her.

989
00:48:26,800 --> 00:48:28,920
Speaker 1: She seems like a lovely person, but it is not

990
00:48:29,040 --> 00:48:31,400
Speaker 1: breaking news that she cut her hair. And so I

991
00:48:31,440 --> 00:48:34,480
Speaker 1: think to some degree, right, we have lots of examples

992
00:48:34,560 --> 00:48:37,560
Speaker 1: of how we have undermined ourselves strengthly.

993
00:48:37,760 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 2: And it trains your audience to tune out.

994
00:48:40,280 --> 00:48:41,800
Speaker 3: You know, it's like, oh, I don't need to I

995
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 3: get a million of these notifications.

996
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:44,040
Speaker 2: Who cares? You know?

997
00:48:44,280 --> 00:48:45,440
Speaker 4: Exactly exactly.

998
00:48:46,800 --> 00:48:47,719
Speaker 2: One of my last.

999
00:48:47,560 --> 00:48:50,319
Speaker 3: Questions for you is just what does it feel like

1000
00:48:50,480 --> 00:48:54,880
Speaker 3: to see the response to your to the work that

1001
00:48:54,920 --> 00:48:57,000
Speaker 3: you've helped put out into the world. I mean, the

1002
00:48:57,080 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 3: response has been huge.

1003
00:48:58,680 --> 00:48:59,319
Speaker 2: What is that like?

1004
00:48:59,840 --> 00:49:02,360
Speaker 4: You know, it's it's really really nice.

1005
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:03,080
Speaker 2: Uh.

1006
00:49:03,120 --> 00:49:06,040
Speaker 1: But I will say that sometimes you do great projects

1007
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:09,240
Speaker 1: that nobody really sees. You started talking about the site.

1008
00:49:09,239 --> 00:49:12,640
Speaker 1: The site was a great show. We literally had six viewers.

1009
00:49:12,640 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 1: We were in hash marks, which means it didn't have

1010
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:18,080
Speaker 1: enough viewers to like actually count them. I love doing

1011
00:49:18,080 --> 00:49:20,280
Speaker 1: that show. That was a great show right so ahead

1012
00:49:20,280 --> 00:49:24,080
Speaker 1: of its time, but but no one watched it. And uh,

1013
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:26,799
Speaker 1: and so you know, I I guess it's always great

1014
00:49:26,840 --> 00:49:29,839
Speaker 1: when the work that you've done and you're you're associated

1015
00:49:29,880 --> 00:49:32,640
Speaker 1: with is seeing because that's awesome. You just want people

1016
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:34,880
Speaker 1: to see it, especially in documentaries. You want people to

1017
00:49:34,880 --> 00:49:37,680
Speaker 1: see it. So it's it's amazing, it feels great. But

1018
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:40,240
Speaker 1: also I think there's just a zillion other projects. Of course,

1019
00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:43,400
Speaker 1: since it's award season for Docks, you you end up

1020
00:49:43,480 --> 00:49:45,880
Speaker 1: watching everybody else's doc too. So all I do is

1021
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:49,920
Speaker 1: watching docs all the time. There's a zillion fantastic projects

1022
00:49:49,920 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 1: out there, a zillion, And so I would say people

1023
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:54,920
Speaker 1: should be more like you and learn to love docs

1024
00:49:56,280 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 1: maybe more than watching a lot of you know, talking

1025
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:00,520
Speaker 1: heads rotating through every half hour are.

1026
00:50:00,640 --> 00:50:02,320
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, there is no I've said it on

1027
00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 3: the show before. There's no truer, better medium. Things like

1028
00:50:07,520 --> 00:50:10,640
Speaker 3: actual stories that have been told and happened will always

1029
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:13,960
Speaker 3: be more interesting, more layered, more complex than anything anybody

1030
00:50:13,960 --> 00:50:16,359
Speaker 3: could could come up with. Documentary is where it's at.

1031
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 4: Yep, yep, I agree. From your mouth to God's ears.

1032
00:50:20,160 --> 00:50:25,040
Speaker 3: Let me say, Soldad O'Brien, I'm like completely peeked out.

1033
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here. It's it's an honor.

1034
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:31,840
Speaker 2: I have chills. Where can people follow you? What what

1035
00:50:31,840 --> 00:50:34,120
Speaker 2: what you've got? Like, how can people keep in talking?

1036
00:50:34,120 --> 00:50:37,799
Speaker 1: We always have projects we're doing, so we obviously we

1037
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:41,640
Speaker 1: are on the award circuit now, which means we're doing

1038
00:50:41,680 --> 00:50:43,120
Speaker 1: a lot of screenings, et cetera.

1039
00:50:42,920 --> 00:50:43,319
Speaker 2: Et cetera.

1040
00:50:43,360 --> 00:50:44,880
Speaker 1: It's been really fun to go to some of these

1041
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:47,960
Speaker 1: awards shows because I'm getting to pull out some old

1042
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,960
Speaker 1: gowns and you know, squeeze in on them. So so

1043
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:54,879
Speaker 1: if anything that you want to follow around that kind

1044
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:58,120
Speaker 1: of stuff, I'm on Instagram of course, at Solidad O'Brien.

1045
00:50:58,200 --> 00:51:00,720
Speaker 1: One word, I don't do a lot on X. People

1046
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:03,640
Speaker 1: sometimes reach out, so every four weeks I go in

1047
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:06,560
Speaker 1: and respond to a million people who I've ignored. So

1048
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:08,800
Speaker 1: apologies to anybody who's reaching out to me on X,

1049
00:51:08,920 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 1: but it's just it's a little bit. I feel like

1050
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 1: it's everything you post to posts later becomes something about

1051
00:51:15,560 --> 00:51:16,320
Speaker 1: white supremacy.

1052
00:51:16,440 --> 00:51:17,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I had to.

1053
00:51:17,600 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 1: I finally like from my own santade I was like,

1054
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:22,360
Speaker 1: you know what, I cannot do this consistently. So I

1055
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:25,320
Speaker 1: hop in and out and yet.

1056
00:51:25,520 --> 00:51:28,799
Speaker 4: We follow me on Instagram, you'll see a lot of

1057
00:51:28,800 --> 00:51:29,359
Speaker 4: what we're doing.

1058
00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:36,120
Speaker 3: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech. I

1059
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:38,000
Speaker 3: just want to say Hi. You can reach us at

1060
00:51:38,040 --> 00:51:40,760
Speaker 3: Hello at tegody dot com. You can also find transcripts

1061
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:42,560
Speaker 3: for today's episode at tengody dot com.

1062
00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 2: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by

1063
00:51:44,600 --> 00:51:45,319
Speaker 2: me Bridget Todd.

1064
00:51:45,719 --> 00:51:49,160
Speaker 3: It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative Jonathan Strickland

1065
00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:51,920
Speaker 3: as our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and

1066
00:51:51,960 --> 00:51:55,719
Speaker 3: sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,

1067
00:51:55,719 --> 00:51:58,520
Speaker 3: Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate

1068
00:51:58,560 --> 00:52:02,279
Speaker 3: and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,

1069
00:52:02,400 --> 00:52:04,719
Speaker 3: check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

1070
00:52:04,800 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 3: get your podcasts.